Carbon markets = corruption

Fake markets are easy to scam, because no one really wants or cares about “the product”. Fake markets are dangerous tools. Judging by the way people act, the point of carbon markets is to feed bureaucrats and bankers, not to change the weather. If that’s true, it’s entirely predictable that yet another scandal has run for years, and no one “noticed” or acted to stop it. Not only were diesel cars scamming the lab tests for pollution, but other cars were built to exploit loopholes (that may be legal) in the lab tests for fuel economy as well. The audacity is remarkable — real car CO2 emissions are often a gobsmacking 40- 50% higher than reported, even in top brand, expensive cars.*

As much as two-thirds of CO2 cuts since 2008 may have been imaginary and made by cars that were only fuel efficient in the lab. CO2 “pollution” doesn’t hurt anyone, but misleading fuel economy figures may have cost owners €450 a year more in fuel to run. The companies known to get suspiciously good results on fuel economy (so far) are BMW, Mercedes, Renault and Peugeot. Companies using software to get around other pollution tests now include VW, BMW, Mercedes, Audi, Seat, and Skoda. (VW owns Audi, Skoda, and apparently Porsche, Bentley, Bugatti, Lamborghini as well.) South Korea, Britain, France and Japan are all ordering their car makers to answer questions. Though, hypocritically, governments of UK, France and Germany have all lobbied to keep in the loopholes in the emissions tests. Everywhere we look, “seeming” is important, but few really care about CO2 or pollution. The market is fake, the numbers are fake, and the “concern” is fake too.

“On average, two-thirds of the claimed gains in CO2 emissions and fuel consumption since 2008 have been delivered through manipulating tests with only 13.3 g/km of real progress on the roads set against 22.2 g/km of ‘hot air’” according to the T&E report.

New cars, including the Mercedes A, C and E class, BMW 5 series and Peugeot 308, are now swallowing around 50% more fuel than their lab test results reveal, according to new on-the-road results compiled by NGO Transport & Environment (T&E). T&E calls for a comprehensive investigation into both air pollution and fuel economy tests across Europe and a complete overhaul of the testing system.

“The gap between official and real-world performance found in many car models has grown so wide that it cannot be explained through known factors including test manipulations. While this does not constitute proof of ‘defeat devices’ being used to fiddle fuel economy tests, similar to that used by Volkswagen, EU governments must extend probes into defeat devices to CO2 tests and petrol cars too,” says T&E in a press release.

T& notes: “The gap between official test results for CO2 emissions/fuel economy and real-world performance has increased to 40% on average in 2014 from 8% in 2001, according to T&E’s 2015 Mind the Gap report, which analyses on-the-road fuel consumption by motorists and highlights the abuses by carmakers of the current tests and the failure of EU regulators to close loopholes. T&E said the gap has become a chasm and, without action, will likely grow to 50% on average by 2020.”

All up, the carnage is pretty impressive. In Europe, the Greens played tax games and encouraged people to buy diesels to “cut CO2″. Once, there were hardly any diesel cars, then there were lots — thanks to green-government incentives. Meanwhile the companies cheated on software which produced good results in lab tests, but spewed out noxious gas the rest of the time. Eleven million VW’s maybe affected. Nearly half a million VWs and Audis have already been recalled. Those US cars would make made 10,000 – 40,000 tons of NOx, which is 10 – 40 times as much as they were supposed too if they met EPA standards.

“Twenty years ago, diesel cars constituted a tiny minority. But following the signing of the Kyoto Protocol in 1997, most Western countries, including Britain, were legally obliged to reduce carbon dioxide emissions — alleged by some to cause climate change — by 8 per cent over the following 15 years.

Diesel cars produce slightly less — but only slightly — carbon dioxide than petrol ones. In 2001 the Labour government introduced a new tax regime whereby cars were taxed according to how much carbon dioxide they produce, a development that enormously favoured diesel over petrol. (Duty at the pump has been the same for petrol and diesel since 2000.)”

Mercedes and BMW hit too

25 Sept: UK Times: David Charter/Ben Webster: BMW and Mercedes hit as fraud scandal spreads
BMW was sucked into the widening Volkswagen fraud scandal yesterday after a report stated that emissions from one of the carmaker’s models were far higher than the European Union limit. Shares in BMW fell by nearly 10 per cent at one point after it was claimed that emissions from the X3 were 11 times the legal threshold under the same tests that first raised concerns about VW… The disclosure came on a day of crisis in the car industry as the German government admitted that software used by VW to cheat in American laboratory tests was also used in Europe…

So when did EU official know and why didn’t they do something sooner?

25 Sept: UK Times: Exhausting Dishonesty
EU officials and the transport secretary must clarify when they learnt of flaws in diesel emissions tests and why they have not acted more swiftly All the worst scandals have a prequel in which they are open secrets. Anybody even on the periphery of the automobile industry has known for years that many carmakers’ claims about the performance of their products are to be taken with a pinch of salt. Features in which the official claims of miles-per-gallon of new vehicles are contrasted with actual, real-world levels have long been commonplace, with the latter invariably clocking in at about two thirds of the former…

Using these figures, the estimated extra pollution from Volkswagen’s US cars can be expected to lead to an additional 5 to 27 premature deaths per year. If we extrapolated worldwide to all 11 million vehicles, that would come to somewhere between 74 and 404 premature deaths each year

* (Surely some owners would notice this latter discrepancy in fuel economy, since fuel is real and it does matter? But perhaps car owners don’t care that much about the real but marginal cost of their fuel economy figures – And for some owners, maybe the theoretical figure is good enough for bragging rights at dinner parties?) But I am surprised that dedicated log-book keepers didn’t notice (my Dad would have).

Finally, the law of ‘unintended’ consequences, an inverse expression of the precautionary principle. When the EPA labels a truly vital atmospheric trace gas a ‘pollutant’, how would you expect rational humanity and corporations to respond to this institutionlised irrationality?

Its breaking down of national borders for commerce and internal travel purposes has led to a collective de-emphasis on its external borders. After all, now that European tension problems were under control, what could possibly go wrong?

The current immigration rorting by people smugglers who are intent on pushing hundreds of thousands of people using asylum protection rights shows that up in sharp perspective. Arrivals are being shipped off to some other EU country’s backyard as soon as possible. There is no/little will to defend the EU borders on the front-line.

This current European motor manufacturer’s (apparent) trickiness seems symptomatic of a decline in what was the former greatness of Europe.

The issue is that there aren’t any borders anymore. I drove from Andorra to France, Switzerland, France, Belgium and then ferried to the UK. The first time passports were checked was for the UK ferry. The Swiss did stop us, but only to sell us a 40 Euro driving permit for the car.

Swiss road toll only applies mostly on the Autobahn and a few similar highways (Mautstrecken). It’s a bit tricky to avoid them at the borders because the major signs point to the toll roads. I drove several hundred kmn through Switzerland via the scenic routes, avoiding (in one area, with great difficulty) all the toll roads.

The toll sticker is valid for a year. It seemed absurd for me to buy one just to use 18km of toll roads over 3 days.

Another thing that struck me was the proportion of large vehicles, not just 4WD, but also Chevy Corvettes and the like.

Clearly I have not understood the fuel consumption test conditions at all. Unlike you I have consistently overshot both the City and the Highway fuel consumption conditions for my recent cars, (Volkswagon Passat, Ford Territory petrol and Ford Territory diesel) by about 10%, even under good conditions.

My best recent consumption in the Territory diesel was 8.9L/100Km, from mostly country driving. The windscreen label however says 8.2L/100km.

Country driving for me means driving at the speed limit, mostly 100Km and sometimes 110Km with interruptions by towns every 40km or so, with stops and starts.

I have an old car (30 years old) that gets 21 mpg at 65 mph and 18 mpg at 55 mph. If I increase speed to 80 mph it gets 27 mpg. If I increase cruising speed to 90 mph it will drop it back down to 21 mpg. It’s a bell curve. It also uses a certain amount of fuel per hour at engine speeds between 1800 to 2500 rpms, regardless of speed. Around town in stop and go traffic it gets only 11 mpg. The original rating was 20 mph highway and 16 mpg city.

The outrage hurled at VW I found amusing, car manufacturers have been manipulating performance figures since the industry began but the social justice advocates seriously believed that because they demanded impossible legislations that somehow magically overnight the real world physics of a fuel ignited metal air pump was going to produce almost no ‘deadly’ CO2.

I’ve seen and assisted with a few cars that have been tuned on a Dyno (Dynamometer), the variables for power/torque, fuel economy, running temperature are mind boggling when you see how many tables are in the cars ECU/ECM programing, to be capable of operating this system correctly takes years of experience, study or a natural talent for it to be successfully achieved.

Like many GCM’s the results can be tweaked to give desired results often to keep a customer happy their money wasn’t wasted, the car industry simply used the given technology to achieve emission targets within the system to ensure continued productivity, how this impacts on the effects of actual harmful emissions may be impossible to calculate.

‘ELEVEN million VW drivers have been recalled to the factory to be fitted with scepticism about man-made global warming.

‘The filters, fitted between the brain’s cognitive functions and speech centres, will allow diesel drivers to smoothly and efficiently call the whole basis of climate change into question.

‘A Volkswagen spokesman said: “With this new device, they will confidently throw out plausible-sounding observations about NASA’s faked hockey-stick graph and the stability of Antarctic ice cores that will pass 90 per cent of challenges.

“Otherwise they would just mumble out a load of discredited guff like ‘If there’s global warming then how come it snowed last winter?’

“The hardware includes a defeat device which shuts it down if the Volkswagen driver is engaged in conversation with anyone who actually knows what they’re talking about.”

‘Stephen Malley, who drives a diesel VW Scirocco, said: “Climate change can only pose a danger if we admit that it exists.

The market is fake, the numbers are fake, and the “concern” is fake too.

We’re surprised?

It’s what you get when the “science” is fake and the “economics” are fake too.

The dogma of “markets can solve any problem” is courtesy of the World Bank. They are “X-spurts*” at designing fake markets. They understand nothing of technology, people, real economics, physics nor science. They advise governments. The advice is invariably bad for the people of the “advised” country but always very good for the polly who pushes or is responsible for implementing the policy. They do know how to siphon money.
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* where X is the unknown commodity and spurts are huge jets of money under pressure …

The Politicians FAILED the driving public by not monitoring the accuracy of car makers compliance with set legislation.

The Pollies failed EVERYBODY, probably for VOTES, by implementing legislation to establish probably unreasonably high standards which could not reasonably be met with economical technology, then telling their adoring public it was “all better now.”

Nobody has yet suggested that modern cars are so clean you can sit in one in a small enclosed space, such as a garage, and run the engine without endangering your life. The words well ventilated still appear in the user manuals. Yes, the manufacturers have been caught out. Oh dear, how sad, too bad, never mind.

Frankly, I like two things about the modern cars: the performance which is available should I ever really need it and the actual fuel economy they do produce. Diesels are dirty and always will be unless they exhaust into a closed container to catch the particulates. Like horses should always have to

Despite all this, I still tip my hat to the vehicle manufacturers for what they have actually achieved. I haven’t seen any of the photo-chemical smog in recent decades which I used to see in the past.

The climate spivs PR department is out shining itself on this runup to the Paris climatefest.

I very much doubt that anyone will find out how long these odd figures have been known because it will show that this ‘fossil fuel is bad’ band wagon is nothing more than FUD on the road to Paris. Are they so afraid that the good times are ending and the trough will be empty?

When this issue hit the MSM about 10 days ago (of course it was known long before), people may have noticed that Mug Q Public (ie. us) were promised “utter transparency” by both Govts and vehicle manufacturers

People may have also noticed that since those hand-on-heart promises, we have been fed anything but … and it just gets more and more murky. An age-old adage: the most difficult things to aquire in any given situation are *all* of the hard, uncompromising, relevant facts; generally, this proves a bridge too far. There is a very unpleasant reason for that, of course …

Take an old T model ford running on our U beaut roads using 80 octane fuel and it will beat modern cars for economy and pollution output.
It was also unique in that the dual generating system was OK to light your house. The more things change the more they stay the same is oft quoted, we still use steam as the most efficient way to generate electricity. Simplicity leads to efficiency, more rules and more BS leads to complication and inefficiency. CO2 being a non pollutant, making rules for its control is stupidity of the highest order, car companies trying to get around the nonsense should be a wake up call to regulators.

Given the clout of car manufacturers, maybe the time is approaching that the theory of CO2 armageddon should be tested in a world court and make the buggers prove beyond doubt that CO2 will fry our world. Win that and the entire [snip "scam"] disappears.

I think the only vehicle emission figure of any genuine relevance is nitrogen oxides which used to contribute to photochemical smog in certain cities before emissions controls.

It used to be that emissions controls caused an enormous fuel economy and performance hit but not so much now. Nevertheless, I think that if an engine can be made to run more efficiently with uncontrolled NOx emissions, perhaps NOx controls could be activated only where they are needed such as certain cities susceptible to smog. Activation could be controlled by GPS.

NOx’s are not intrinsically bad – they are made by lightning and fertilise the soil.

Calling CO2 a “pollutant” and controlling for its emission is absurd as it is a natural product of combustion as everyone here knows (but few others seem to).

???China has actually taken emissions seriously
???if the world, led by the US and China, does embrace emissions trading, then we must follow

really?

28 Sept: Australian: Robert Gottliebsen: Big loophole in global emissions trading
As the world starts to look more seriously at global emissions trading, we are opening up an opportunity for massive carbon frauds because the technology will move ahead of the regulators and testing mechanisms unless great care is taken.
Indeed, all those supporting emissions trading should realise that unless carbon emissions are very closely regulated and tested, sophisticated versions of Volkswagen affair will sweep the world. There are fortunes to be made.
Europe has an internal emissions trading scheme and my guess is that many technical people will have both known about and will have been watching what Volkswagen people were doing…
China has announced an emissions trading scheme within the country, much of it directed at the materials Australia exports.
???China has actually taken emissions seriously…
If emissions trading becomes inter-country and those burning carbon can buy credits internationally, there is no doubt that technology will be available to commit massive fraud.
While the original Australian carbon tax structure was just about the stupidest thing any country like Australia could do, if the world, led by the US and China, does embrace emissions trading, ???then we must follow…
(Greg) Hunt is very confident that the next auction to ‘buy’ government help to reduce carbon emissions will be even more successful than the first one because large areas of industrialised Australia have now cottoned on to the minister’s grand plan…
In addition, Australia will adopt European car emissions standards now that the local motor industry is to be closed down.http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/opinion/big-loophole-in-global-emissions-trading/story-fnp85ntp-1227546746630

this has been dragging out for years and still no names:

29 Sept: Reuters: Maria Sheahan: Briton extradited to Germany in carbon trading probe
A Briton arrested in Las Vegas last year in connection with suspected evasion of taxes worth 136 million euros ($153 million) in the trading of carbon emissions certificates has been extradited to Germany, local prosecutors said.
The move is part of a probe into so-called carousel trades made in 2009 and 2010…
The 57-year-old man extradited to Germany is suspected of having been the mastermind of a gang making such trades and having provided capital for the purchase of emissions permits, the Frankfurt prosecutor’s office said on Tuesday, without revealing his identity.
“The suspect fed certificates into the trading process via a company based in Dubai, and as the person factually responsible for four companies based in Frankfurt, Munich and Berlin he controlled the VAT carousel through members of the gang,” the prosecutor’s office said.
The man was arrested in Las Vegas in May last year after a German court issued an international warrant for him. He was brought to Germany on Friday and has been remanded in custody, the prosecutor’s office said.
It also said that another suspect, a 35-year-old Briton, surrendered to German authorities voluntarily upon entering the country at Frankfurt airport on Sept. 15…
Also, Frankfurt prosecutors last month indicted seven current and one former employee of Deutsche Bank in connection with its carbon fraud probes.http://uk.reuters.com/article/2015/09/29/carbontrading-germany-idUKL5N11Z2MD20150929

???China has actually taken emissions seriously
???if the world, led by the US and China, does embrace emissions trading, then we must follow

really?

Some American cars get 66% better fuel economy in China than they do in North America, because China has different emissions standards and what they consider pollutants and non pollutants. It’s simply in the engine management computer program.

I love my politically incorrect 6 litre V8 car and how it turns wonderful fossil energy into speed and power. I am not too concerned about fuel economy and not at all concerned about excessive emissions but it does get surprisingly good fuel economy for such a massive beast (the engine never goes too much above idle when not accelerating).

Incidentally, the engine is designed to be able to run on ethanol but guess what? Running on ethanol uses about 30% more fuel than petrol (gasoline) but the ethanol is not 30% cheaper even with the government subsidy of ethanol so there is no economic advantage to using ethanol (except it supposedly delivers more power according to some opinions and young rev heads use it to get their otherwise non-compliant vehicles through emissions testing.

Also, in Australia, ethanol is made from agricultural “waste” but this supposed waste used to or could be returned to the soil to fertilise it so now external fertiliser has to be added to the soil to replace it so where is the net energy and economic balance there?

The last petrol engine vehicle I owned did best on Premium Unleaded Petrol 95 and on E10 the motor idled roughly and I was always concerned about leaving it parked in the shed for too many weeks with E10 in the tank. Reason higher cost offset by better fuel consumption result.

I had a Honda 130 outboard motor on a boat and after a fishing trip with 160 litres of PUP95 in the fuel tank I by mistake topped up with 90 litres of E10. One year later after the boat had been in storage I had the motor serviced before launching on the water again but it would not rev much higher than a just above idle speed without stalling. Returning to the service centre they discovered rubber fuel lines damaged and the electric fuel pump also damaged. Ethanol was the problem even though it had been diluted when mixed 90 litres into 70 litres of PUP 95.

Two motorcycles, one chain saw, one lawnmower and most recently my farm ATV later with the same experiences. Ethanol plus humidity equals water plus gas equals gum. The motorcycles and ATV required dealer carb rebuild. I was able to domthemchain saw and lawnmower myself-screw it up, and you are not out a fortune. E10 is bad for small engines. And for any engine run infrequently.

I got one of the last of the 5L V8 WB Holden utes, never run anything but 95 Premium, also run a ’68 Triumph Bonneville on 95, and just finished putting a big bore kit on my young blokes competition bike – 95 again. Been building engines for a hobby all my life and I remember science back in high school – Metho is ethyl alcohol – ‘drink it, but don’t drive it’.

This is very heartwarming. We have a group of liars which have created lying models which an entire new group of liars have created even more lying models to satisfy the original lies. Maybe it’s time to simply mandate the two groups merge on the hope that two negatives will somehow create a positive.
One simply loves the modern science of models.

Whatever happened to “peak oil”? Of course, oil will run out some day, but then we still have shale oils, tar sands and coal liquefaction. At some point genetically engineered organisms will make liquid hydrocarbons for us as experimental ones are now, albeit not in an economically viable fashion at the moment. There still seems to be enough oil for a decent time into the future, providing that the planned collapse of Western Civilisation does not happen.

Chemical fuels will always have a much higher energy density than battery storage, even in theory and we will always need them.

Steam engine with very low fuel consumption for water heating to create steam results in a far more fuel efficient power source. During the 1970s an engineer with the surname Pritchard converted a couple of Ford Falcon sedans to a modern steam engine power unit featuring quick start technology. No gearbox needed. Ford Australia purchased the cars and the know how and that was the end of the project.

The late Howard Hughes of the USA favoured the Dobel steam car of the 1930s that was also practical and economical with excellent performance. Australian built and designed steam cars and other application steam engines were built in Maryborough, Queensland by Olds Engineering mid 1900s, Olds family name being the US Oldsmobile and related R.E.Olds or REO trucks. I was told that at least one converted to steam Olds Engineeering car could travel considerable distances on a one gallon can of kerosine.

Dennis:
The early steam cars had low fuel consumption because they were light weight. Also a light weight boiler plus small engine weighs less than a motor, gearbox etc.
In a modern car body with the extra (mandatory) weight they would not achieve much. Why did marine users switch from reciprocating 3 stage steam engines to turbines?

The advantages of steam is the use of alternate fuels e.g. Kerosene and high torque at very low revs. (something shared with electric motors).
The greatest gain in mileage would come from regenerative braking.

As someone who has written the occasional computer program I had to laugh at the VW solution to emissions testing. I did also wonder if they actually did anything illegal. The government has defined the hoops to jump through and the cars all passed. What is not to like? Are the governments now saying that the test was not realistic enough?

I knew that Diesel fuel could store energy more compactly than, say, petrol so it gives better fuel consumption figures but I now know that it also releases more CO2 per litre of fuel used as well. So the “carbon” savings are not as great as you might suppose.

30 Sept: Inrernational Business Times: Darwin Malicdem: Scientists find Chinese-made goods have higher carbon emissions, cause faster global climate change
Scientists revealed that the growing consumption of Chinese-made goods by consumers across the world has been potentially accelerating global climate change. A new study shows that products from China are causing substantial cost to the environment due to its higher carbon dioxide emissions than similar products made in other countries…
The researchers noted that the huge number of products being exported or the energy-demanding industries of the country may also contribute to huge carbon emissions from the country…
In the study, published on Monday in the journal Nature Climate Change, the Chinese industries include steel mills, mineral processors and petrochemical plants that produce huge level of carbon…
“Given the differences we observed within industries and across provinces in China, many opportunities would involve creating incentives to promote the adoption of Chinese best practices,” said lead author Zhu Liu, from the Harvard University and California Institute of Technology.http://www.ibtimes.com.au/scientists-find-chinese-made-goods-have-higher-carbon-emissions-cause-faster-global-climate-change

Nature Climate Change: Targeted opportunities to address the climate–trade dilemma in China
Published online 28 September 2015
Abstract
Here we show that the emissions embodied in Chinese exports, which are larger than the annual emissions of Japan or Germany, are primarily the result of China’s coal-based energy mix and the very high emissions intensity (emission per unit of economic value) in a few provinces and industry sectors. Exports from these provinces and sectors therefore represent targeted opportunities to address the climate–trade dilemma by either improving production technologies and decarbonizing the underlying energy systems or else reducing trade volumes…http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nclimate2800.html

I’m only highlighting this one quote here from pat: (again, my Bolding here)

A new study shows that products from China are causing substantial cost to the environment due to its higher carbon dioxide emissions than similar products made in other countries…
The researchers noted that the huge number of products being exported or the energy-demanding industries of the country may also contribute to huge carbon emissions from the country…

I get really frustrated when I see images of air pollution in China, and it’s attributed to coal fired power generation, because the text with those images is so patently false.

I’ve been working on something lately, and when I first saw what I found, I just couldn’t believe it, so I’ve gone over it again and again, and each time I get the same result.

Huge CO2 emissions from China??? You be the judge.

China has been furiously constructing new tech USC coal fired power plants, and closing virtually all of their older tech plants as those new ones come on line. So much so, that now, 95% of their coal fired power is USC technology, and they are quite literally the World leader in this technology.

Take the total coal fired power generation in the U.S. (and the same applies across Europe as well) That same amount of actual generated electrical power in China emits less CO2 than for that amount of power in the U.S. (even though China generates considerably more coal fired power than the U.S.)

How much less emitted CO2.

35%

See why I had to go back and check, and check again, because it’s quite literally astonishing.

29 Sept: TWC News: Katie Gibbs: SolarCity Moves Ahead Despite Federal Probe
Time Warner Cable News reporter Katie Gibas spoke with the construction company about the federal probe and what it means for the future of their work.
BUFFALO, N.Y. — It seems like it was just yesterday developers were breaking ground on the SolarCity project in South Buffalo. Now, almost a year to date, LPCiminelli construction crews are just about to finish enclosing the building. They say the speed is thanks to a bidding process called Best Value Procurement, which is merit-based rather than price-based.
“Best Value allows contractors to get in earlier. Quite frankly, I highly doubt we would even be out of the ground yet…
While Schuler said Best Value is common practice, according to several reports, the bidding process is now coming under fire from federal authorities.
Those reports say the federal probe is looking into whether campaign contributions to governor Cuomo’s reelection campaign by members of the Ciminelli family, including LPCiminelli’s CEO, contributed to the company being selected for the project.
“We are not the subject, nor are we the target of the probe. Our effort is to make a deadline. To us, while it’s a distraction, it doesn’t stop the men and women who work there everyday from getting the job done and we have to be focused on that…
Schuler said they were one of several firms to compete for the job to build the Western Hemisphere’s largest solar panel plant.
“We can’t allow rumor and innuendo and some of this other stuff that’s going on right now to distract us. This is too important to allow this to get derailed by any of that stuff. This is the future,” said (Kevin Schuler, an LPCiminelli Spokesperson)…http://www.twcnews.com/nys/buffalo/news/2015/09/29/solarcity-moves-ahead-despite-federal-probe.html

30 Sept: AFR: Michael Smith: Technology game changer in power sector struggle
The challenges facing the energy sector have taken centre stage with Origin Energy taking drastic measures to bolster its balance sheet on the same day that AGL Energy fronts shareholders with new climate change commitments…
This trend explains why the former boss of one of Australia’s biggest power generation companies this week launched a company that aims to disrupt the industry with new technology that helps consumers use less electricity.
You could say former EnergyAustralia boss Richard McIndoe, one of the most vocal critics of the former government’s carbon reduction policies, has switched allegiances. But it is more complicated than that…
He is the executive chairman of energy technology start-up Edge Electrons, which is about to start offering devices to Australian households that regulate the amount of electricity they consume. A partnership signed with Nasdaq-listed electronics giant Flextronics at the weekend was the launchpad to go live with the technology the company has been developing for a year…
“What the last year has shown me is the potential for technology to disrupt the traditional industry is huge,” McIndoe told Chanticleer in an interview at his Hong Kong office this week…
While the company is based in Hong Kong, has engineering operations in the Philippines and manufactures in China, it will use Australia as the test market.
McIndoe decided to team up with Neil Stewart, an Australian, who has worked in the electronics industry in Hong Kong since the 1970s, after being showed the technology which regulates the flow of electricity in a household and claims to be able to reduce consumption by 10 to 15 per cent.
“He showed me this technology and I had never seen anything like it in 20 years in the industry and I thought this is incredibly disruptive. “…
The key product is a voltage regulator. Networks are increasingly running the voltages at the higher end of the required levels to cope with the intermittent supply coming into the system from things like solar panels. He says this means households are often paying for 255 volts when they are only requiring 220 volts…
The payback for a customer is two years compared with five or six years for buying solar panels…http://www.afr.com/brand/chanticleer/technology-game-changer-in-power-sector-struggle-20150929-gjxrcl

We don’t even know if 2 grams/km of NOx emissions is acceptable. Bad or good? Obviously, it has not caused an increase on photo-chemical smog during the last 8 years. Yet it is being reported as a terrible awful thing. I suspect it is another case of creating an unreasonable standard that is difficult or impossible to meet without unacceptable trade offs. It’s part of the never ending changing of goal posts strategy of the green left. It is aimed specifically at turbo diesel cars. They want these off the roads and off the market as the better alternative to the type of cars they want us to buy instead. It’s an attempt to manipulate the market by bureaucrats.

NOx is caused by high combustion temps, or in other words more efficient combustion. So by trading off more NOx during some periods of operation they get significantly better performance and cleaner overall emissions. Is that not a good trade off based on engineering, instead of an artificial politicized standard set by bureaucrats?

I’ve never believed fuel economy figures as absolute measures when buying cars, but they are useful when comparing cars. Car buyers don’t care about their particular Nox figure (except for greenies of course), what matters are the NOx figures of all the other vehicles.

NOx only really causes problems in cities, I wonder how much of that problem is down to the “green” policies that force people out of their relatively clean cars and into fume-belching buses, or onto bicycles in close proximity to vehicles.

Not even a year later, the same green motoring (dis)organization reveals that the green zones aren’t getting cleaner air than similar areas without such restrictions.

The ADAC finds that after several years of such vehicle exclusions, there is no difference in air quality compared to similar cities without such draconian regulations. Still, more cities scramble to impose the useless “Environment Zones”.

i.e. a lowering vehicle of emissions below a level passed many years ago, makes no significant difference to air quality, even in cities.

So we have nonexistent solutions to a nonexistent problem. Sounds about par for the course.

The only thing I’m convinced is true is that the people keep voting with their wallets and keep buying gas guzzling vehicles. And then they vote the same way over and over at the gas pump. The only amazing thing about it is that the self righteous planet savers can’t recognize this fact.

Where is the point of diminishing returns, the point at which we say, it isn’t practical to go any farther down that road? I think we’ve passed it in most cases and are just adding regulation for the sake of keeping the regulators on the public payroll.

Roy you would know all about excessive regulation in the Republic of Kalifornia, many performance vehicle enthusiasts have been treated like serious criminals for basic modifications that actually improve fuel economy, I understand the dangers of harmful emissions and vehicle safety but a lot of this over regulation narrows down the options for owners to legally modify their vehicles destroying a long standing USA industry in the process.

Andrew, a simple economic answer wrt diesel. All thebig displacement diesels have had to go to urea injection pre cat converter to control NOX. Example, Daimler Blutec. Semi tractors. navistar tried to avoid this, failed, and nearly collapsed financially. Expensive.
The VW diesels are small displacement turbocharged direct injection (TDI). So less NOX in the first place. So they skipped urea injection. Now fuel milage is maximized by lean burn ( stochiometrically more air than fuel per charge.) but that maximizes NOX (from air!). To minimize NOX, you need a rich burn (more fuel than air). So the software simply manipulated the turbos and fuel to provide rich burn under test for NOX, and lean burn under normal driving conditions to max fuel efficiency. Clever solution. Just criminally illegal in the US wrt to bothntesting and marketing. And VW stonewalled for more than a year until the EPA and California’s CARB said they would not certify VW MY 2016 TDI diesels for US sale until test/road discrepancies were cleared up. There will be folks going to jail on this one.

I’m really looking fwd to how this plays out – Goverment-wise. Our governments rely on car-makers (et al) to give them good reporting numbers for CO2 to make them look good for Paris and ‘le merde vert’.
How wonderful would it be if it turned out that those governments were really in on the act so that they could fiddle their own reporting as well.

Why buy a diesel at all unless you are using a commercial vehicle.
The real fuel usage of passenger cars has not really changed much in the past 40 years,what has changed are the better transmissions that are computerised,but then that comes at a greater cost.

My first car gave me 20mpg. I now get 70mpg from a medium size family car a Skoda Octavia Greenline III. So if you haven’t seen any change in 40 years then I suggest you must be driving a pickup that you bought 40 years ago. (:-

We drive a MY 2007 Ford full hybrid Escape. AWD, class 1 tow hitch, small SUV. 50% better gas milage and more torque than the normal V6 equivalent. Same tow capability. 2 liter 4 cyl Atkinson cycle engine, 15% more fuel efficient.Only 153 HP, and 10% less torque. Made up by a 97 HP electric machine (so torquy at low RPM comparision is meaningless) , so more total HP and torque than the V6. Plus, picked up 5-7% FE because engine off at stop in city. Plus picks up another 7-9% in regenerative braking. Plus picks up another 10% (about) because of the DCT transmission that enables enfinemoff in an automtic. Ford is making DCT standard now worldwide.

We paid $3k more than for the non-hybrid V6, and got a $7k income tax subsidy year of purchase. Found money. But the hybrid would have paid for itself anyway in 3 years without subsidy at the then gas prices. i am a big fan of full hybrids like Toyota Prius, our Escape, or the newer Ford Focus. Plug ins and all electrics, no.

For people who travel long distances on country roads the diesel engine with maximum torque produced at much lower revs than a petrol motor is favoured, and offers better fuel consumption. And for people who tow, boat trailers and caravans for example, the diesel is the best option.

We had a VW Passat TDI. An excellent car for the long motorway drives we had to do. We reluctantly sold it when we needed an estate car to lug grandchildren and dog and luggage around the country. We then had a petrol Volvo V70 estate which was good on motorways but sluggish on steep hills and towing the caravan. This was then changed for a diesel Volvo V70 estate, which is brilliant and does excellent mpg.

I was listening to Wake up Australia with Michael McLaren on radio 2GB 330AM to 530AM this morning and whilst I was dozing on and off I did hear two interesting things mentioned. One caller mentioned about how Abbott’s call for the BoM to be investigated for adjusting raw data and another mentioned how global warming was a scam. Andrew McLaren was in agreement.

It annoys me that the call for due diligence at the BoM is being twisted by the usual suspects to deflect attention away from the climate change deceptive media releases that do not match BoM historical records to suggesting that there is no need to question BoM records.

I have a 1 yr old Skoda with a VW diesel engine. The UK combined official figure states 88mpg. I do a lot of motorway driving and can reliably get 70mpg on a trip, and that is driving at the speed limit, currently 70mph on motorways. So I am not unhappy at the mpg I am getting, it’d be nice to get the official figure though.

The best I got was on a French motorway restricted to 110kmph with air temperatures of 37C to 40C and the air dryer than usual as they hadn’t had any rain for several weeks. I had the air con on. Fuel economy for the day was 80mpg. I was pleased with that.

This is the first car I have has where I haven’t been able to reach the official figure, nonetheless I am getting the best fuel economy I have ever had.

Typo is on the post being held for moderation. Hit the letter x instead of c.

About reliably getting 70mpg from a 1yr old Skoda Octavia Green line III a medium to large family car. Official figure is an unacheivable 88mpg. But I have had 80mpg in hot weather with the air con on.

Even the modern diesel engines work more efficiently when given a bit of “boot”. Back in the old days, one could tell when there was too much boot from the tailpipe’s smoke. Apply enough for brisk acceleration to get to the cruising speed and the highest gear possible, in a short distance. Look (far) ahead in traffic to adjust your speed to an average for the traffic ahead.

Don’t use the vehicle’s cruise control in hilly terrain; don’t put your foot down quite hard enough to maintain a constant speed uphill; let it slow a little and then let the speed increase downhill.

Keep in mind also that the roughness of the surface plays a significant part in rolling resistance and therefore fuel consumption of the vehicle. Road noise on a surface is a proxy for surface roughness; but not a perfect one.

Keep tyre pressures on the high side to minimise rolling resistance all of the time. You can further reduce rolling resistance by shedding vehicle weight; don’t cart your junk around everywhere; and there’s around 20kg of fuel that you’re not using most of the time. Depending on location, you can get away with only filling your fuel tank to about half-full when commuting. It means refuelling 2 to 3 times as often; so that can be quite an inconvenience.

It’ll be interesting to see what the law actually says. It is conceivable that the law hasn’t been broken. Then its down to interpretation as to the spirit of the law. May be the case that the full law does cover intent and spirit but that the engineers and people behind the clever test performance were only given the technical part of the law and were unaware of the full text of the relevant laws and so may lose in court.

Science Direct: Earth-Science Reviews: November 2015 Issue
Hemisphere temperature trends since the 19th century
***Willie Soon, Ronan Connolly, Michael Connolly
Abstract
Debate over what influence (if any) solar variability has had on surface air temperature trends since the 19th century has been controversial. In this paper, we consider two factors which may have contributed to this controversy:..http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0012825215300349

And how many cars were “junked” (They had to be shredded – not recycled) in the Cash for Clunkers” fiasco? There was only an average of 1 or 2 MPG improvement over the vehicles traded in. And this data means that rating also be an imaginary number. Also, the fix for this is to have the computers reprogramed to meet the required emission test requirements which means the vehicles will get even worse miles per gallon numbers, and thus more CO2.

I know they would have wanted me to junk my 1991 Buick Century during the Cash for Clunkers program. It looks really rough, but it runs very well. Besides, on the highway it gets 28-29 mpg, while most of the cars that were highly promoted during the program only got 30-32 mpg or so. Not very tempting at all, even if I had been one of those people who likes to borrow money for a depreciating asset.

My Buick was paid for. I really could not justify going into hock to buy a new “green” car, despite all the hype.

I kept thinking the program was just a make-work project for banks that make car loans. Oh, and probably a way to find a bunch of scrap metal to ship to China.

I still drive the Buick, even though I was given a 2002 Honda Civic by some relatives. I believe I have sunk $1500-$1700 into the “free” Honda. LOL! I use it for shorter trips, and the Buick for longer ones. I try to drive both cars most days, just make sure they don’t get stale. Eventually, my shy offspring will take the driving test, then I will be glad I have both cars. (What it is about young people these days – they don’t care if they get their driver’s license or not! I couldn’t wait to reach 16 and get mine!)

30 Sept: Alaska Public Radio: Dan Bross: Heavy snowfall cuts power to thousands around Fairbanks
The snow storm is one for Fairbanks record book, according National Weather Service meteorologist Christopher Cox.
“For the official observation at the airport for yesterday, we had 11.2 inches of snow,” he said. “And that is the most snowfall on a September day that’s ever been recorded.”
Cox says the monthly total, which he expects to top 20 inches, will move this month solidly into second place behind the record setting snowy September of 1992, when over 24 inches fell.http://www.alaskapublic.org/2015/09/30/heavy-snowfall-cuts-power-to-thousands-around-fairbanks/

yeah there is the long trip factor, a/c, temperatures etc. the reality is though, people always overstate their mpg.

i have 2 cars that do 1000km per week each on a fairly consistent basis with 90+% being freeway/highway. one was a 2L TDI diesel cruze, the other a 4L dual fuel LPG falcon.

the diesel would get approx 6.8L/100K = 35mpg (tested on most tank fills). the sticker on purchase stated city driving 6.8L/100K and 4.8L/100K = 52mpg. it would be possible without a/c to get 40mpg

the LPG would get 12L/100K = 21mpg. no sticker for this, but petrol is much higher mpg of course. at gas being half the price of diesel, the LPG is cheaper to run.

my latest is an ecolpi (liquid phase injection) LPG falcon which gives a fairly consistent 10.8L/100K so is the clear leader in running costs. sticker for this car is 12L/100K, but there is a obviously a lot more LPG use in stop/start driving.

30 Sept: Accuweather: Heavy Snow Thwarts Only Expedition to Peak of Mount Everest in 2015
This year’s only expedition to the top of Mount Everest fell short of reaching the mountain’s peak due to heavy snow, meaning that no one will step foot on top of the world’s tallest mountain this year.
Heavy snow has fallen around Mount Everest in Nepal’s Himalaya Mountains over the past weeks and has made some parts of the climb too difficult to navigate, forcing many people to abandon their attempts at climbing Everest…
Nobukazu Kuriki was the only person who was attempting to climb to the top of the 29,029-foot (8,848-m) peak this fall following the feet of snow, but he was forced to turn around last weekend due to the abundance of snow.
“I left the final camp a little after 8pm on 26th for summit push,” Kuriki wrote on his Facebook page. “I tried hard taking all my energy, but it took too much time to move in deep, deep snow.”…http://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/heavy-snow-thwarts-only-expedi/52683229

My FIAT had a special program to help me drive economically. It was a pain, the whole car was a pain. An auto gearbox which got into the habit of disappearing at awkward moments. Dealer didn’t believe me at first, then it happened to the workshop manager. I was driving the loan car for a week, an Alfa which was really a FIAT in a pretty frock. I now have a Japanese car which does what it says on the box!

The article in’t correct in saying that also BMW and Mercedes have fake software.

For all cars, the test cycles are different from the real road driving conditions, so the results are different. But VW faked even the test cycle. The aim was to reach the right results with lower costs tha the competitors.

My wife drives a VW eco up! with less than 3 kg of LPG per 100 km. Nearly all autobahn, and not high speed. But even at higher speed it will never go above 4 kg/100km. I even achieved 2.5 kg/100km, but this is really slow motion.

The governments in Europe were so obsessed with reducing co2 emissions from vehicles that when they were fed this story about diesel, they failed to appreciate the meaning of “when something sounds too good to be true, it’s because it is”.

VW [may be] guilty of scientific fraud, and if it is taken to the cleaners, few will feel sorry for VW’s misleading and deceptive conduct. But few will feel sorry for the real criminals … the politicians and governments that really did know the truth about diesel being a high polluting fuel but decided that that was ok because diesel fuels emit less co2 than petrol and that’s what it was all about.

30 Sept: ClimateChangeNews: Alex Pashley: UK ecomodernism launch ‘hijacked by climate lukewarmers’
Far right ex-environment minister Owen Paterson appropriated new movement for war against the “green blob”, to the dismay of founders
An attempt to bridge a political divide on how to combat climate change has backfired, with participants turning on each other.
Last week was the UK launch of the in-vogue movement of ecomodernism at a right-wing think tank in London.
For manifesto co-author Mark Lynas, it was a “screw-up of impressive proportions”, as ousted environment minister Owen Paterson seized its platform to blast what he calls the “green blob”.
Rather than constructively explore how ecomodernism aims to use science and technology to solve climate change, Paterson dominated the event with his anti-environmentalist agenda.
“Carbon dioxide isn’t a poison,” said the Conservative backbencher, who was fired from his cabinet post in 2014.
“If you did have very modest warming actually you would see crops grow further north, and you’d see growing yields.” Saving rhinos was a more immediate concern than climate, he said…
But with Paterson’s think tank UK2020 hosting and several climate sceptic bloggers in the audience, the launch had a clear right-wing tilt…
Tory peer and self-described lukewarmer Matt Ridley voiced his support for fossil fuels to protect the world’s poor from polluting indoor wood stoves…http://www.climatechangenews.com/2015/09/30/uk-ecomodernism-launch-hijacked-by-climate-lukewarmers/

Di Natale’s biggest lie in the following: “Now I’m not going to speak for very long on this issue”…
***hilarious line, made even funnier by not having commas before and after Turnbull’s name.

Video/Transcript: 30 Sept: Greens: Richard Di Natale’s National Press Club Address
Now whether Malcolm Turnbull, the fifth Prime Minister in as many years, can change any of this is an open question in my mind. I have to say it’s pretty hard to imagine that things can get any worse. You know things are pretty cook(sic) when someone like Morris Newman, a climate denier… look, he’s a tin-foil hat wearing conspiracy theorist, when Malcolm Turnbull says he’s not going to be reappointed as his business adviser and as a community we celebrate that decision, you know things are pretty crook. You know that the benchmark has been set very low…
Now whether the new Prime Minister can deliver will depend on whether he’s done a pact with dinosaurs that have locked him into the Abbott Government’s agenda. Nothing’s changed and some of the early signs are not good. Malcolm Turnbull has already backed in Tony Abbott’s very weak climate targets. Targets that are, let’s be frank, amongst the worst in the developed world …
And on no other issue is conviction and courage more important than on issue of global warming. We’re now disrupting the world’s climate systems and quite literally changing the conditions for life on earth. Now I’m not going to speak for very long on this issue. I suspect that for many of you if you don’t know this already, nothing that I say will make a big difference, but the science is telling us that we are on a trajectory that puts us on track for a 3.5 degree temperature rise. That is incompatible with civilisation(sic) life on earth as we know it. Some nations will be wiped out altogether. Our major coastal cities will be inundated. We’ll see food supplies disrupted, we’ll see the collapse of entire ecosystems. People will endure unprecedented heat waves. We’re going to witness the spread of infectious diseases and resource wars will become inevitable. The world will be unrecognisable.
***So unless we get serious about tackling global warming, everything else Malcolm Turnbull is just background noise.
Malcolm Turnbull can’t be taken seriously on his plan for an economic transformation unless at the heart of that plan is a credible attempt to address global warming and the economic transition that it demands…http://richard-di-natale.greensmps.org.au/content/video/richard-di-natales-national-press-club-address

29 Sept: AFP: Al Gore spreads environmental gospel before climate talks
Miami (AFP) – Nobel Peace Prize winner Al Gore is busily training an army of organizers to go out and spread his environmental gospel ahead of key climate talks in Paris later this year.
The modern world is collapsing around us and we must change our ways, according to the former US vice president, who has led the training of more than 5,000 people in the last 18 months.
At each session, he delivers an updated version of his Academy Award-winning documentary “An Inconvenient Truth,” using the latest news footage and startling videos to show how the very fossil fuels that have powered so much innovation are leading to the demise of society…
“The world that we have built was built for different conditions,” Gore told about 1,000 people who came from 80 countries to attend the three-day climate training session…
Attendees in Miami were charged no fee to participate, but once their applications were approved, they were required to pay for their own food, lodging and travel…
Pressed by Gore for a more precise timeline, he said to expect at least 6.5 feet (sea level rise) before century’s end.
Such a scenario would devour many coastal cities worldwide, but Gore counseled his followers to maintain a positive focus, citing progress in the wind and solar industries.
“Despair is paralyzing,” said Gore. “We can’t deliver that message.”…(READ ALL FOR MORE DESPAIR)http://news.yahoo.com/al-gore-spreads-environmental-gospel-climate-talks-073001537.html

30 Sept: UK Daily Mail: Steve Doughty: Back climate change agenda, Charles tells judges in ‘message of support’ to Climate Change and the Courts conference
Prince Charles has urged judges to use courts to combat climate change
He told them the judiciary will be asked to rule on many legal challenges
Charles’ comments made in letter presented to climate change conference
The move risks again exposing the future king to concern over his willingness to involve himself in highly contentious political disputes, particularly over whether state limits on greenhouse gas emissions are necessary or beneficial…
The event at King’s College London was held with the backing of the Supreme Court. Judges attending included his former legal adviser Lord Carnwath, a Justice of the Supreme Court.
A number of prominent judges from around the world were also present alongside legal and environment academics…http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3254256/Back-climate-change-agenda-Charles-tells-judges-Prince-makes-public-bid-influence-courts.html#ixzz3nGuzdg4F

30 Sept: Breitbart: James Delingpole: Shock Jock Thom Hartmann: Climate Change Deniers Should Be In Prison
“You are paid to lie to people” he told skeptic Paul Driessen on his radio show.
“I am talking about racketeering, organized crime. I am calling you a criminal” said Hartmann, warming to his theme.
“You are killing people…You have five million climate refugees…Dead children, your responsibility….It’s all the consequence of climate change.”
Well I’ve been on Hartmann’s show myself and I know that gibbering hysteria is how he rolls. “Take a chill pill, Thom, baby,” you want to tell him. Or you would if he ever let you get a word in edgewise, which unfortunately he never does. He’s not interested in what you have to say because he already knows all the answers. Which is a shame because if he listened more and frothed and foamed less, he might actually learn something…http://www.breitbart.com/big-journalism/2015/09/30/shock-jock-thom-hartmann-climate-change-deniers-prison/

29 Sept: UK Daily Mail: Peter Campbelll: Thousands of jobs to go after owners of giant steelworks in Redcar announce it will shut for at least five years after global price collapsed
Some 1,700 employees, many of whom are highly skilled engineers, will be made redundant…
Another 4,000 contractors at the site and further down the supply chain also face losing their jobs.
And it is feared the company may not even be able to afford the redundancy payments…
Manufacturing at the plant, which produced the steel for the Sydney Harbour Bridge, was put on hold earlier this month following a collapse in the global price of steel…
Gareth Stace, director of UK Steel, said: ‘Sympathy and warm words are welcome, but Ministers must now get behind British steel and deliver the support that we urgently need.’
***He called on the government to ‘create a level playing field for British steel by fully compensating the industry for the high cost of electricity caused by the imposition of climate change policies’.http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3252848/Thousands-jobs-owners-giant-steelworks-Redcar-announce-shut-five-years-global-price-collapsed.html

30 Sept: UK Register: Lewis Page: MASSIVE GLOBAL COOLING process discovered as Paris climate deal looms
‘Could explain recent disagreements’
A team of top-level atmospheric chemistry boffins from France and Germany say they have identified a new process by which vast amounts of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are emitted into the atmosphere from the sea – a process which was unknown until now, meaning that existing climate models do not take account of it.
The effect of VOCs in the air is to cool the climate down, and thus climate models used today predict more warming than can actually be expected. Indeed, global temperatures have actually been stable for more than fifteen years, a circumstance which was not predicted by climate models and which climate science is still struggling to assmilate…
The new research is published here courtesy of the learned journal Environmental Science and Technology, and as the Leibniz Institute notes: “Because of the great importance this paper will be open access”.http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/09/30/massive_global_cooling_factor_discovered_ahead_of_paris_climate_talks/?mt=1443630815604

30 Sept: Scotsman: David O’Leary: Record fine for Scots green energy firm’s pestering phonecalls
ICO found the company made more than six million calls as part of a massive automated call marketing campaign offering “free” solar panels…
The ICO said the fine was the largest it had ever issued for nuisance calls.
Its investigation also found that the calls were “misleading” because the solar panels were not necessarily free as implied by the recorded messagehttp://www.scotsman.com/news/environment/record-fine-for-scots-green-energy-firm-s-pestering-phonecalls-1-3902924

Just as a point of general interest here, I note that we’re getting a lot of fuel consumption details here, and perhaps there may be a little bit of confusion about some of those figures.

I’m not sure if many people are aware, but there is a difference in weights and measures most commonly referred to when it comes to the word ….. GALLON.

A gallon here in Australia is the Imperial Gallon, and it is a larger amount that the U.S. gallon.

One Imperial Gallon equals 1.2 gallons in the U.S. so where you see mileage data for cars from the U.S. their MPG rate looks to be less than here in Australia for what the same car will be getting here in Australia, and then there is the added conversion to litres per 100KM.

So, 40MPG here in Australia equals 33.3MPG in the U.S. and that then equals 7.06 Litres/100Km.

Incidentally, the same also applies with respect to weight. We use the Imperial ton (2240 Pounds) the Americans use their ton (2000 Pounds) and then there is the Tonne. (1000Kg)

Confusing, and also introducing the added thing where similar sounding measures can be incorrectly attributed.

30 Sept: Reuters: Millions face hunger due to climate change, ‘super El Nino’: Oxfam
By Joseph D’Urso
At least 10 million poor people face hunger this year and next because of droughts and erratic rains linked to record global temperatures and an expected “super” version of the evolving El Nino weather pattern, aid charity Oxfam has warned…
“Governments and agencies need to act rapidly to avert humanitarian disasters in the next year,” said (Mark Goldring, Oxfam GB’s chief executive).
“This should serve as a wake-up call for them to agree a global deal to tackle climate change.”http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/10/01/us-climatechange-aid-hunger-idUSKCN0RV33220151001

1 Oct: Oxfam America: Super El Niño and climate change putting millions at risk of hunger
At least ten million poor people face hunger this year and next due to droughts and erratic rains, influenced by climate change and the likely development of a ‘super El Niño’, according to a new Oxfam report released today.
In Entering Uncharted Waters: El Niño and the threat to food security (LINK), Oxfam warns that crops have already failed in Southern Africa and Central America, driving up the price of corn on local markets. Ethiopia and parts of South East Asia are suffering from the effects of drought and are braced for worse in coming months…
Such extreme weather events are only going to increase as climate change continues to exasperate. 2014 was the hottest year on record and this year looks set to exceed it…http://www.oxfamamerica.org/press/super-el-ni%C3%B1o-and-climate-change-putting-millions-at-risk-of-hunger/

1 Oct: Guardian: Fiona Harvey: World’s energy systems at risk from global warming, says industry group
Energy systems, including fossil fuel power stations, distribution grids, and the networks that reach to people’s homes, are all at risk from effects such as flooding, severe storms and sea level rises, according to a new report from the World Energy Council, which brings together energy companies, academics and public sector agencies.
When energy systems fail, the knock-on effects on other aspects of modern infrastructure – from water and sewage to transport and health – can be catastrophic…
WEC warned that the number of extreme weather events globally had risen by a factor of more than four in the past three decades, from about 38 events – such as major storms, heatwaves and flooding – to 174 events in 2014. ***The insurance industry has struggled to keep up…http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/oct/01/worlds-energy-systems-at-risk-from-global-warming-say-leading-firms

1 Oct: MarineLink: Italy’s Eni Arrives Arctic as Shell Departs
By Aiswarya Lakshmi
As Shell retreats from the Arctic, the Italian oil giant Eni is making final preparations for its own oil exploration venture in the Norwegian Arctic, reports the Guardian…
Eni has vowed to press ahead with oil production – a $5.5bn (£3.6bn) project – in the Norwegian Arctic…
The project’s 64,000-tonne floating platform is already in place and its wells have been drilled, ready for imminent production…
Operator ENI has a 65 percent stake in the field, while its partner Statoil holds the remaining 35 percent.http://www.marinelink.com/news/arrives-departs-italys398733.aspx

1 Oct: Business Green: Jessica Shankleman: Solar power industry braces for 98 per cent feed-in tariff spending cut
Industry analysis shows sector would receive just £2m a year in support through to 2018 if government proposals are approved
The government is set to slash support for the rollout of solar panels by 98 per cent over the next three years, from £70m a year to just £2m a year, according to a stark new industry analysis.
According to the study from the Solar Trade Association (STA), government plans to cut the popular feed-in tariff announced in August would see the total level of support provided through the bill-payer scheme fall to just £7m between 2016 and 2018…
Paul Barwell, STA chief executive of the STA, said the cuts were “absurd”, and noted the government would be spending less on solar over the next three years than the amount Buckinghamshire County Council spends on potholes in one year…
“Given how close solar is to being subsidy-free – which these cuts will delay – giving this vital technology one last push is clearly in the interest of consumers. Currently government is set to trip its solar revolution up at the last hurdle, which makes no sense at all.”
In addition to cutting feed-in tariff support the government has also announced plans to close the Renewables Obligation for solar farms smaller than 5MW in capacity…http://www.businessgreen.com/bg/news/2428444/solar-power-industry-braces-for-98-per-cent-feed-in-tariff-spending-cut

from Carbon Brief Daily Briefing 1 Oct:

UK Times: Subsidies for solar panel industry ‘cut to less than £2m’
The government is to spend less on subsidies for new solar rooftop panels from next year than it has committed to give China to fund a grass-roots football programme, figures show.

30 Sept: Financial Times: Martin Sandbu: Free Lunch: The road to Paris
Climate change is a bread-and-butter issue
(Bank of England’s Mark) Carney’s wide-ranging and thoughtful speech sets out the ways in which climate change is a threat to financial stability, and continues the intellectual form the Bank of England already has on this issue…
The direct economic disruptions of catastrophic weather events, for example, could cause greater financial instability. So, indeed, could the world’s adjustment to a different climate: “A wholesale reassessment of prospects, especially if it were to occur suddenly, could potentially destabilise markets, spark a pro-cyclical crystallisation of losses and a persistent tightening of financial conditions. In other words, an abrupt resolution of the tragedy of horizons is in itself a financial stability risk.”…
***Carney’s conclusion is spot on: all this means markets need to be created to manage the orderly transition…
But it is well known that the ideal way to encourage decarbonisation worldwide is for there to be a worldwide price on carbon. The politically most realistic way to do that is surely through a global emissions trading scheme, in which poorer countries that emit less per capita would sell their unused emissions permits to richer countries. In this way, potentially huge transfers could take place through a market between businesses — avoiding the difficult (for both sides) politics of state-to-state subsidies and the need to raise the funds through taxes…http://www.ft.com/cms/s/3/eb0bf180-6761-11e5-a57f-21b88f7d973f.html

the FT writer:

LinkedIn: Martin Sandbu
Summary: My work draws insight from the intersection of economics, politics and ethics. I write and advise about the process of economic development, the poltiics and economics of natural resources, and the ethical responsibility of business. I both lecture and take individual consultancy projects.
I have a B.A. in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics from Oxford University and a Ph.D. in Political Economy and Government from Harvard University. I have worked at Columbia University with research and policy advising in economic development. I am part of the senior advisory team at the Columbia University Earth Institute’s advisory project for the government in Sao Tome e Principe in West Africa. I have consulted with governmental and non-governmental organisations in Latin America, Africa and Asia, primarily on the issue of natural resource development. I am founding chair of the Norwegian think-tank Liberalt Laboratorium…https://uk.linkedin.com/in/martinsandbu

29 Sept: NYT: Eduardo Porter: Getting to $100 Billion in Climate Change Aid
Where’s the money?
Six years ago in Copenhagen, Hillary Clinton, then secretary of state, brought the moribund negotiations on a deal to slow climate change back from the dead with a single promise of $100 billion a year to help the world’s poor nations…
“The rogue countries are those who have a hard case to build,” said Athena Ballesteros, in charge of sustainable finance at the World Resources Institute, an environmental research and advocacy organization. “The U.S. and Japan and to a certain extent Australia and the U.K.”
Reaching $100 billion is essential more for its diplomatic significance than for its actual impact on climate change…
The most important change requires redirecting trillions of dollars now flowing into carbon-heavy energy projects into clean alternatives.
The $100 billion is needed for everything else to fall into place…
“It’s kind of like a trust piece for developing countries,” said Jennifer Morgan, global director of the climate program at the World Resources Institute. “And it’s the easiest tool to block progress for those who want to block progress.”…
Donor nations will not come up with $100 billion in entirely new money…Certainly they will not come up with $100 billion of purely public funds. But they will have to come up with something meaningful.
A World Resources Institute report estimated that $10 billion to $14 billion in government money for climate finance on top of the $17 billion deployed in 2012 would be enough to seal a deal…http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/30/business/getting-to-100-billion-in-climate-change-aid.html?_r=0

30 Sept: Guardian: Mark Lynas: Ecomodernism launch was a screw-up of impressive proportions
Our attempt to launch a new environmental political movement in the UK was certainly ill-timed but is hopefully not doomed
Well that was interesting. Last week I and a few other people attempted to launch a new environmental political movement here in the UK. If you count alienating most of your potential supporters on the very first day as a sign of success, I think things went rather well. If not … well, I’ll get to that in a minute.
The movement is “ecomodernism…
We already have an Ecomodernist manifesto, and with two of its co-authors Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger of the San Francisco-based Breakthrough Institute visiting London, we were hopeful for an exciting, movement-building week…
Even before their plane had touched down at Heathrow, problems began to emerge. As the UK’s original paid-up ecomodernist (I’m also a co-author of the manifesto) I had the responsibility of playing host. The first event I booked in – after some friendly initial meetings – was with former environment minister Owen Paterson’s thinktank UK2020, with science writer and House of Lords grandee Matt Ridley joining us on the panel.
This plan did not meet with the approval of George Monbiot…
Journalists from the BBC and the Guardian both publicly and privately lambasted our obstinate naivety in being seen to represent ecomodernism on the same stage with a man who Monbiot has called “the worst environment secretary this country has ever suffered”…
(SOME MORE LAUGHS IN THE COMMENTS)http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/sep/30/ecomodernism-launch-was-a-screw-up-of-impressive-proportions

1 Oct: ClimateChangeNews: Megan Darby: Netherlands enters appeal against climate ruling
Government will challenge facts of groundbreaking verdict that demanded steeper emissions cuts, after parliamentary debate
In July, district judges ruled the Netherlands must reduce emissions at least 25% from 1990 levels by 2020. Existing policies are set to yield 17%.
It was a groundbreaking victory for campaign group Urgenda, which brought the case backed by almost 900 citizens.
But after a parliamentary debate last week, the government confirmed plans to challenge the verdict in the Appeals Court…
Marjan Minnesma, director of Urgenda, said it showed the Netherlands was “still not treating this issue with the urgency it so desperately needs”…
The whole process could take 2-3 years, with a verdict on the initial appeal not expected before the end of 2016…
A similar case is under way in Belgium and campaigners are preparing lawsuits in Norway, France, Switzerland and Australia, lawyer Dennis van Berkel told Climate Home.http://www.climatechangenews.com/2015/10/01/netherlands-enters-appeal-against-climate-ruling/

1 Oct: ReutersCarbonPulse: Ben Garside: Almost all EU ETS compliance firms won’t need MiFID licences -analysts
Almost all EU companies with ETS obligations won’t need a MiFID II licence to trade EUAs because they will fall under the thresholds set by regulators this week, according to analysts at ICIS Tschach Solutions.
EU finance authority ESMA on Monday raised the thresholds for exempting carbon trading firms from requiring costly MiFID licences due from 2017. The revised rules are intended to cover all EU ETS and UN carbon derivatives, clearing up uncertainty over the scope of coverage under MiFID I.
These thresholds are likely high enough for non-financial companies to not need one, which should mean fears about liquidity draining due to industrial firms withdrawing from trade will be unfounded, ICIS’s Stefan Feuchtinger told Carbon Pulse…
Feuchtinger stressed that his calculations concern carbon only, it could be the case that companies dealing in other commodities could be above the respective thresholds and require therefore a licence…
While ETS compliance firms may escape a major regulatory cost, large energy trading houses – many of which trade carbon – would need to add as much as €6 billion in extra capital to comply, according to the European Federation of Energy Traders (EFET), Bloomberg reported.http://carbon-pulse.com/almost-all-eu-ets-compliance-firms-wont-need-mifid-licences-analysts/

1 Oct: Bloomberg: Energy Traders Seen Needing Billions in Regulation Shakeup
Rules to require up to 6 billion euros each in extra capital
Wholesale prices to rise 1% as bid/offer spreads may widen
by Rebecca Christie and Mathew Carr
Large energy firms would need to add as much as 6 billion euros ($6.7 billion) in extra capital under proposed European Union trading rules designed to prevent market abuse, according to the European Federation of Energy Traders.
The European Securities and Markets Authority’s proposals may push up wholesale electricity prices by 1 percent, or 7 billion euros per year, because of the burdens they would place on energy-trading market makers, Paul Dawson, the group’s chairman, said Thursday in an interview in Brussels…
The commission has three months to decide whether to endorse the proposals before final approval by the European Parliament and the bloc’s Councilhttp://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-10-01/energy-traders-seen-needing-extra-billions-in-regulation-shakeup

Large energy firms would need to add as much as 6 billion euros ($6.7 billion) in extra capital under proposed European Union trading rules designed to prevent market abuse, according to the European Federation of Energy Traders.

Think about this for a minute.

If power generating companies are asked to add extra capital, where do you think that will be coming from?

Why the consumers of electricity of course. The price of the electricity they sell to the providers will just be jacked up.

So, this isn’t for any actual climate mitigation. It’s just to prop up the market.